


It's Paid For

by Meilan_Firaga



Series: 25 Days of Christmas Fics - 2016 [12]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8844163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Tifa has run away to spend her holidays in solitude after a really rough year, but maybe things are starting to look up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Day 12 of my 2016 attempt at 25 Days of Christmas Fics.
> 
> Prompt 12: Hot Chocolate

Distance was the best way to get over it. She wasn’t going to find a way to move on with her life if she kept repeating the same routines. She needed different locations, different people. At least for a little while. That’s what Tifa kept telling herself, anyway. She’d certainly managed to gain the distance. Icicle Inn wasn’t a world away from Edge, but it was close. She was as far north as she could go without returning to the Crater, and since everyone expected her to vacation in a more tropical locale (though she couldn’t understand why--she had grown up in the mountains, after all), no one was going to bother her.

It was almost a year previously that she’d told Cloud they were through. The months since had been a nightmare of legal agreements, anger, and the tears of Marlene and Denzel. Cloud had one the right to spend the holidays with Denzel that year, so all Tifa really wanted was peaceful solitude.

In spite of winter being the tiny resort town’s biggest season, Icicle Inn was virtually deserted for Christmas. Most of the merchants weren’t even in residence, and she’d been warned by the owner of the little bed and breakfast she was staying in that pretty much everything would close at 6pm on Christmas Eve and not open until after Christmas Day. The only exception, apparently, was a tiny Wutaian restaurant that was open every day of the year. She planned to avoid it until then so she didn’t have a chance of burning herself out.

Still, there was something overwhelming peaceful about the empty little town. By the time she’d been there for three days she knew everyone by name. The little coffee shop and bookstore was happy to have her as a regular and took to prepping her order before she’d even made it to the counter. Tifa had never been much of a coffee drinker, but she had a soft spot for hot chocolate and chai lattes. In the furthest reaches of her mind she knew that the pounds she was putting on with frothy drinks each day were going to haunt her, but it was also refreshing to let the thoughts of diet and exercise go for a while. Her body could be content with yoga and Tai Chi in the mornings and evenings until she went home.

Just over a week into her vacation, Constance, the shop’s barista, sat a fresh mug of cocoa down on Tifa’s table just as she’d finished her first one. She gave the younger woman a questioning look and got a giggling smile back in return. “It’s already paid for,” she admitted, giving Tifa a conspiratorial wink. “He went upstairs to browse the stacks. Turned six shades of red when he said he wanted to send another cocoa to you. He must have just come into town because I don’t recognize him.” She tucked her tray under one arm and patted Tifa on the shoulder before she bustled back to the counter. “He’s a handsome one, so you keep an eye on those stairs!”

Tifa couldn’t concentrate on her book. She wasn’t interested, of course. It was too soon and that weird feeling in her stomach was definitely indigestion and not butterflies. Curiosity just dictated that she see who gifted her more cocoa. That was all. She was staring over the top of her book, doing a very poor job of hiding, when shiny black shoes appeared on the stairs. She followed the line of his body up as he descended, and by the time he stood at the bottom Tifa’s heart was pounding. She knew him. Rude. One of the Turks.

His sunglasses were in place, but she knew the moment he looked at her. His cheeks flushed. Unbidden, a memory of his stammered admission that she was his choice out of all of AVALANCHE from a time when they’d been enemies flashed in her mind. Aside from Tseng, he was always the most sensible of the Turks. Despite his less than savory career history, she couldn’t believe that Rude finding her in the near abandoned resort was anything but coincidence. He just wasn’t the stalking type. What could taking a chance hurt?

Tifa closed her book and gave him her most warm and inviting smile.


End file.
